On ‘possibility’

@article{Guyer2009On,
  title={On ‘possibility’},
  author={Jane I. Guyer},
  journal={Anthropological Theory},
  year={2009},
  volume={9},
  pages={355 - 370}
}
  • J. Guyer
  • Published 2009
  • Sociology
  • Anthropological Theory
The article originates in a response to discuss ‘How Is Anthropology Going?’. Perceiving a new pattern in the almost 90 years looking backward and forward from my own undergraduate training, I concentrate on the recurrent concept of human ‘possibility’. Its changing referents are traced over four 20-year cycles, starting with Malinowski and Benedict (1920s and 1930s), moving to Gellner’s Thought and Change (1965), Marcus and Fischer’s Anthropology as Cultural Critique (1986), Graeber’s… Expand
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In this collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Employing an unpretentious style to convey complex ideas, these twelve essays… Expand
Anthropology as a Moral Science of Possibilities1
In a world of continued and expanding empire, does sociocultural anthropology in itself offer grounds for moral and social criticism? One line in anthropological thought leads to cultural relativism… Expand
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A view from 1950s and 1960s Britain suggests that the public culture of temporality in the United States has shifted from a consequential focus on reasoning toward the near future to a combination of… Expand
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